Re: Images (Tomos)

> From: "Tomos at Wikipedia" <[email protected]>
> Subject: [Wikilegal-l] Are images GFDL'd?

<snip>

> If images are not under GFDL, and say, simply
> copyrighted by the person who 
> uploaded, then I think there is a fair chance that
> downloading an image from 
> an wikipedia and uploading to another wikipedia
> would constitute a copyright 
> violation. I now quite a few people have done that
> at Japanese wikipedia, 
> and I would definitely want to notify them to be
> careful.

I think Tomos, that
*either the image is released under gfdl, and then it
is gfdl everywhere
*or it is released with cp permission, and this
applies to the whole project. The project is *one*,
not a collection of projects. The one who offer
something to one branch of Wikipedia is offering it to
all branches as well. Perhaps this needs to be written
more precisely on the upload text ?

> (The exception I can think is that the whole
> wikipedia in multiple languages 
> is a single work...but I think nobody so far
> suggested or argued that it is 
> the case.)

I suggest, no... I argue, no... I insist, hum... I
claim ?  that this IS the case.  There is one single
project; ihmo


> I guess there is a page like [[Wikipedia:Image Usage
> Policy]] or something 
> similar in each wikipedia.

There is on fr:, unless I delete it again to convince
myself I am not dreaming the existence of that page
:-)

You know...like pinching your arm to check you are
awake ? 


> And it states that the person who upload an image
> has to be the copyright 
> holder, a GFDL permission from the copyright holder,
> or the image has to be 
> in public domain.
> 
> I am inclined to say that all the people who
> uploaded the images they 
> created did indeed agree that images will be
> released under GFDL.

Hum, copyright with permission is also seen quite
frequently.

But the 
> literal interpretation seems to allow some
> alternative take, like, "I am the 
> copyright holder as this policy requires. And I am
> not asked to release my 
> image under GFDL here, as far as I can understand
> from this policy. So I 
> assume this image will not be used as a GFDL image."
> 
> Of course, when we see image information page, there
> might be an explicit 
> statement that the image is released under GFDL.
> That's good. But when such 
> a notice is absent, should we be careful not to use
> those images as GFDL'd?

That is a good question.

Here is usually what I did.

If the image is from an unknown user, I

1) Put some policy model text on his page to suggest
him to give more information
2) If nothing is done, I go back again to ask
3) I list it to be deleted
4) I delete

If the image is from a known user, I

1) Put some policy model text on his page to suggest
him to give more information
2) If nothing is done, I go back again to ask
3) I list it to be deleted
4) I dare not delete, because it can get very noisy.
So the picts accumulate, the description is not given,
the policy not respected. But we may indeed presume
that known user *do* post gfdl only, not copyrighted
images.

The toughest point is when a known user upload an
image from *another* wikipedia, does not give any
description, any author source, any copyright status,
but limit himself to write "from en:".

That is short.

That implies someone has to spent time to go to the
other wikipedia to look by herself what is the
information really given on en (say).

Often, the searcher will find nothing. And does not
know people well enough to be able to jugde whether
the original author might have been ... respecting
gfdl.

In that case, you are in trouble. Because you can't
assume it is gfdl, but you still have a trusted user
who is likely to get mad at you if you delete
permanently the image.

Options are
* you boldly delete
* you put a notice (yourself of course :-)) saying
that the picture has no status, so should be
considered copyrighted per default (perhaps it is not
!)
* you start working toward a centralised place for
images
* you just give up paying attention to copyrights on
images :-)

The good news is that the more wikipedias are
concerned by this problem, the less likely it will
occur that description pages on *other* wikipedias
will be empty :-)

So, I am very glad you care :-)

  
> As always, thank you for your attention.
> 
> regards,
> 
> Tomos

take care Tomos :-)


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